Courses

This course examines the transformation of rural and urban landscapes in the U.S. in the critical era of industrial consolidation, 1880-1940. We investigate the creation of an infrastructure for agriculture that transformed natural environments; the changing vernacular architecture of domestic and industrial workplaces; the development of central downtowns as sites of office buildings, department stores, and civic centers; the spatial instantiation of the Jim Crow segregationist regime in the North as well as the South; the relation between real estate and finance that fueled the Great Depression; and the development of New Deal policies that underwrote public works—including highways-- and public housing, while also subsidizing home ownership, agribusiness, and segregation (the historical context for debates over the “Green New Deal.”.  Reading assignments combine social history and vernacular architectural studies with primary sources that include urban planning and government documents, personal narratives, and both historical and contemporary photographs, maps, and city plans.